[MUD-Dev] The MLI Project

[coder at ibm.net]

On 17/02/98 at 09:04 PM, Travis Casey <efindel at polaris.net> said:

>In area descriptions, a markup language along the lines of HTML could be
>used, indicating special text seen only by those with certain abilities. 
>For objects, extra properties could hold alternative descriptions.  For
>example, a room description:

>  The stone walls and floor here are antiseptically clean, in stark
>  contrast to the rest of the castle. <SMELL 2>There's a faint smell
>  of ammonia in the air<SMELL 5>, and an undertone of blood beneath
>  it</SMELL>.</SMELL>  A brass brazier stands in the back left corner.
>  <INFRAVISION>It still glows with leftover heat, as if it's been used
>  recently.</INFRAVISION>  <MAGIC>A sudden queasy chill indicates the
>  remains of a necromantic spell in the center of the room.</MAGIC>

A problem which has been bugging me in this regard is that while it is
very easy to handle gradated levels of awareness (such as the increasing
levels of smell sense in the example), its much more difficult to cleanly
handle scales where the percieved/reacted-to item is has just such a
gradated description but which also changes utterly at certain points.

Consider the simple case of a second order balance scale which describes
the character's vision visa-vis two variables: minimum perceived frequency
and visible spectrum width.  How could you use such a tagged descritption
to handle a character the majority of whose visible spectrum lies in the
infra-red band and who has very little to no visible spectrum in what we
consider "visible light"?

This alligns with the lense concept raised recently -- I like the idea of
adding perceptics to characters -- but what if those perceptics overwhelm,
devalue, alter-emphasise or otherwise mutate the perceptions priorities of
the character away from the norm?  

Bubba may see a normal room lit by a guttering candle, but Boffo with his
ultra-sonic echo-location and near total myopia outside of the infra-red
band is nearly blinded by the heat flaring off the candle and searing his
retinas, buthas an utterly detailed awareness of the spatial
characteristics of the room.

Want something a little more "normal".  Boffo now has "magic-vision" which
displays the magical potentials of all objects in such strength and
overwhelming detail that their mere visual characteristics are effectively
lost.  

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...